Pillow Talk
by Ink Reservoir
Summary: She didn't understand why someone so robotic couldn't process an equation that to Misa seemed so basic.


They're awake beside each other in a cold bed, Light lies center-left, his head at the crease where his pillow meets Misa's. Misa lies at the edge—if she falls, maybe Ryuk will catch her. It's not that Light takes up much space (he doesn't, he isn't in the habit of curling into himself to leave Misa with less room and he compresses his elbows to his chest as if afraid to annoy her) but lately she thinks she'd rather look at the shinigami's smiling face and not her boyfriend's sullen one. Light doesn't complain, he reached out once to touch her hair and drew back very suddenly, probably the moment he became conscious of what he had done. She turned around but so did he, and she saw enough of his back during the day, she didn't need it at night too. It made her wonder if he missed her attention, but he didn't say anything about it and his "I love you too"s in the day were at their flattest tone yet.

At night, he doesn't even respond, so she stopped saying it.

He hasn't kissed her once since Rem died- and that's how she marks the event in her mind; it was Rem who died; one person on the slowly growing list of friends that Misa has killed since obtaining the Death Note. In retrospect, any affection Light had given her then felt more like thinly veiled distaste, but she thinks she prefers it to the quiet they have now.

"Do you find the silence comfortable?" Misa whispers.

Light doesn't move, she's deciding whether she should turn around to check he's awake or say it again in case, he didn't hear her, but he quietly responds, "It's late at night, it's supposed to be silent."

Ryuk scratches his neck and Misa fixes her eyes on his silhouette.

She pauses, keeps the first question she thinks to ask to herself, and says instead, "Even when it's not, it's silent."

Light rolls onto his back. "I guess you could say it's comfortable. Why are you asking me about this now anyway?" He's speaking just below his regular volume, an appropriate voice for night which would be too low for day.

"I don't like it."

"Sorry, then, but I can't sleep if we're talking."

She turns onto her side to face him, but he's looking at the ceiling. It's too dark to see him anyway.

"Light?"

"What is it?"

"Can I kiss you?"

She doesn't think this will solve anything, it will still be silent afterward and to Light, kisses aren't a sign of intimacy. She doesn't know what he considers intimate, but she probably can't create it anyway.

He obliges, moving across the bed to lie centre-right, his head on Misa's pillow and Misa still on the edge. He moves his hand to touch her cheek, but before he leans in he stops.

"You're going to fall off like that, you're practically hanging off the bed."

He pulls back to give her room. She comes closer to him and rests her head against his chest. He sighs quietly but doesn't object or mention that he still hasn't kissed her, though she knows he wants to do it and get it over with.

She wonders what she did wrong, how Light can treat everything like it's a formula: moving in together is a sign of romance, lying in the same bed is a sign of romance, pledging love in a voice that couldn't win an award for acting in an elementary school play is a sign of romance- but love itself. Why she can go through all the motions, follow every step she knew of to make him love her, and still fall short. Why someone so robotic couldn't process an equation that to Misa seemed so basic.

"Is there anything you want me to do for you?" she murmurs.

"Let me get some sleep?" he suggests. Ryuk laughs. Misa doesn't think it's very funny. "I didn't mean it as a joke."

"Oh," she says.

"Still funny," Ryuk comments in his rough, scratchy voice and Misa suddenly wishes that they didn't have a third roommate.

"Light, do you love me?" she words it as a question, puts passive aggression aside and feels a little more like her old self, looking for a specific response and not taking anything else for an answer. Light shifts.

"Of course I do."

"You don't," she says. Light moves away from her.

"If you already have an answer in your head, why even bother asking?" he huffs. "I'm tired."

"Just tell me the truth for once!" she's speaking above an appropriate volume level for night. Ryuk is laughing, Light has learned to tune him out but Misa hasn't. "Shut up, Ryuk!"

"Sorry."

Light pulls the cover over his head. Misa yanks it back. The shapes in the dark are more defined now, she can see his eyes widen in the moonlight streaming through the cracks between their opaque curtains.

"I want to know," she demands. Light closes the space between them and kisses her.

This situation is too familiar.

She lets him finish the kiss, angry because she wanted to be the one to initiate it and because she knows it means nothing, just a tactic to make her stop talking.

"I still want an answer," she says, quieter now.

"Misa, look," Light says. "…you hate the truth."

It's silent again.

Misa hopes that Light finds it uncomfortable.

She moves to the edge of the bed again, wrapping the blanket around her tightly. Ryuk is no longer at the edge of the bed, near the window now instead. Misa is still cold. Her ears are ringing quietly.

"…I didn't mean that."

Misa grits her teeth. "Yes you did," she says, not turning around.

"Misa, look, it's late. I didn't know what I was sayi—"

"No, Light, thank you."

"Huh?"

"Thank you. For being honest. I know how hard that is for you."

"Tch," he's angry now, and it's like the old days.

"You know what, Light?" she says, speaking to the wall across from her. There's a shelf on that wall decorated with Misa's various knick knacks. Light had brought barely anything but clothes and books when they moved here.

"No, I don't know what, because you haven't told me."

He's like a twelve year old when they argue. Misa gets the impression that he thinks of her as a twelve year old and that's why he allows himself to be so immature.

"The problem with you is that you expect everybody is just going to love you anyway, so it doesn't make a single difference to you when somebody actually does."

It's quiet.

Misa closes her eyes. She'd be content to fall asleep right now.

"So you think I should love you just because you love me?"

The words sting, she should've expected that he'd want the last word. Being awake in the late hours of night talking about love wasn't supposed to be like this.

"Forget it, Light."

"Why do you love me, then?" he asked. His voice doesn't waver. "Knowing that I don't love you."

She doesn't know how to answer. She didn't think she'd ever hear him admit he doesn't love her aloud, the way he says it makes it sound like he never will love her. Misa knew that already, but hearing the words spoken was nothing like thinking them to herself.

"You know why."

"Yes, I know why, but not by your definition of love," he says.

"You can't define love," It sounds profound in Misa's mind.

"Then stop trying to."

She doesn't say anything else. She doesn't know what to say. The conversation is over. Misa has made her point, and Light has made his.

The two of them drift into sleep. Someday, Misa will look back on this, she'll wonder what she meant when she told Light that he knows why she loves him, because at that point, even she won't remember.


End file.
